WOMAN HEALS WOUNDED BY MUSIC

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 176, 21 April 1919, Page 3

WOMAN HEALS WOUNDED BY MUSIC

EXPERIMENT IN AMERICA

AN IDEA WITH A BIG FUTURE

It may be only o, short time (says a writer in the New York "Evening Tost") beforo it will be a matter of common | knowledge and consent that music, by il.s j infinite and finely shaded rhythm 'and ! vibration, timbre and pitch, can hpal not ! only mental but corbun kinds of bodily | illj.ess. tint just at present iL is a j totnll.y new idea, and is being brought to attention for tho firet time through j Miss Margaret Anderton, who has been j working along these lines with • Canadian soldiers for some time. "It is the object of I!ip co;ii-;a to cover tho psycho-physio- ! logical action of music and to pro-ids practical training for therapeutic treatment under medical control," stated; an announcement by the authorities of Columbia University, referring to n proposed course under its auspices. Miss Auderton is an Englishwoman by birth and a pianist by profession, and from the time when she first began to really think about anything 6he says, she has been thinking about, and i uling. about, and experimenting witn tho practical and positive effects of music, j and gradually developing her ideas until j they might l» offered as an assistance j to the medical profession. i Not that there a.re many books to read. There are very few, and tboso few chiefly , French. "When I was_ in Paris study- j ing, J ' Miss Anderton said, "I picked up ' a book one day whioh dealt with tho subject. That ga.i-o new impetus to my own research work, which has really been Krvi'.L' on ■'!! my life. .'-ut. aside from tlie few French books I found, there sec-ms to be nothing as yet to learn from books about it. Almost all I have found out I have found out for myself. Littlo things occurred constantly to throw somo light on the subject, and then, finally, tho war came, which focused things for nie. • • _ ' ■ "Titers are two chief ways of treating patients," Miss Anderton continued, "though in detail no two ca«s can be treated alike. But, as a general thing, I administer tho music for any form of war neurosis, which is largely mental, and have the man produce tho music himself in orthopaedic cases or those of paralysis. Different instruments are used for . 'different types ■of trouble. The timbre of an instrument probably plays the largest part in musical healing, and for this reason wind instruments are good because of their peculiar quality. Wood instruments are particularly potent for a certain kind of war neurosis because of their penetrating, suotaihed tone. Instruments are usually better than vocal music, for with the human vbico tho personal element, which is usually not desirable, enters in. At times, however, tho voice is best. The timbre of wood instruments, however, effects the nerve centres more than dos-s the toico or of tho piano. This is especially good with deaf peonlc, who feel the vibrations. in the spine." Some of the cures seem little short ot miiaculous—and it depends on the definition of tho word miracle whether the) are short of it. Memories have been brought back to men suffering with aphasia; acute temporary insanity done away with; paralysed muscles restored. One captain who had been hurled into (he air and'then buried in debris at tho bursting of a bomb had'-never been able to remember even his own name until the music got him. Tests have been made upon well men, and it has been ascertained that certain pitches or' harmonic combinations Lave a certain' bodily effect. At present the effect on the throat of a certain _ chord in a certain key is being investigated, and it may prove to be of help in dealinn- with pi*vn!ysis of tho jaw. The correspondence hehveen colour and sound vibrations is also threaded into the healing work. This, too, has been worked'on for-years by Miss Anderton. ."I had often thought about it," she said, "but it crystallised for .mo one night after a concert when a man came to me in a state (H Hreat rxcitement nnd asked me why lie had seeu a oertain colour around, a piano all the time that I was playing a certain composition. I looked up [the vibrations of that colour and they were' the same "ns the; vibrations of the dominant tone of tho piece."